Queen Palm Date Wine Q&A

[aiptasia]

So, we have two Queen Palm Date trees in our front yard. For years, i've known that these trees produced very sweet but fiberous edible dates with enough pectin in them to make your mouth pucker. They're very closely related to Pindo palms and their fruits ripen in the winter time (unlike Pindo, which ripen in the spring). The fruit flavor tastes like a cross between apricot, banana and sugary majool date. I have one tree that is ripening with what i'm estimating is about ten pounds or more of date fruits. I'm guessing that the fruits will be ready for harvesting by sometime in early February.

I've found two recipes for Pindo wine online and want to try them on these Queen Palm dates. I wanted to ask here if anyone has any experience making Pindo (or other) Date Wine to have a look at the recipe and offer up any suggestions. I know that I will have to use a good amount of Pectinase on the wine but have some questions on when to use it:

1) One recipe suggest freezing the dates first, letting them thaw and rubbing/mashing up the fibers to get the woody seeds out, then using pectinase to help break down the fiber from the sugars a bit and a campden tablet to kill off any wild bugs. Roughly a 24 hour soak in Pectinase and campden water. Does this sound right?

2) The recipe calls for a few rackings to get the lees and pectin settled out of the wine. What's the best use of pectic enzyme to help settle and clear this kind of wine, and when to use it? Are any other fining agents good for heavy pectin wines?

Here's the best recipe i've found:

Clark's Jelly Palm Wine

for three gallons

Began 11/7/09

9 1/4 lbs. Jelly Palm Fruit, picked, washed, frozen, thawed and crushed
and added to mesh bag.
Water to 3 gal. mark
3 crushed campden tablets
2 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
3 tsp nutrient
3/4 tsp tannin (grape)
1 tsp yeast energizer
13 1/2 cups sugar (brought S.G. to 1.80
3 tbsp Acid Blend (brought to .65)
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11/8/09 tossed 1 pkg Lalvin 71B-1122

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11/11/09 No fermentation
added energizer and nutrient and tossed Cote des Blancs
and whoa Nelly! Began an active fermentation.
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11/13/09 Sg @ 1.45 in AM, and at 1.25 in PM. Racked (thru filter funnel) to carboy
Lots of junk to clear. Lees, pectin

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12/23/09 Racked and added some Sparkaloid as there was so much stuff
clouding the wine. Looked like a very pulpy orange juice.
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12/27/09 Degassed and added a tad more sparkaloid. Nearly clear now.
Putrid smell emanating from carboy during racking.

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1/1/10 Very clear, smell is almost gone. Real aroma of fruit begining.
Pretty clear color, Golden Orange.

***** Update****03/13/2011

This wine is remarkable (IMHO) It does need to age in bottle a full year.

 

[Arpolis]

The recipe looks good to me. The fruit should just need to be prepaired by freezing, thawing and de-seeding. Once de-seeded the add to carboy or re-freeze till you are ready to use. I do not think the second yeast pitch with a different yeast was necessary though in the above recipe steps. When you first prepare the must do not add your pectic enzyme. Just put in the other ingredients and sulfites. Wait at least 12 hours but no more than 24. Then add pectic enzyme. For high pectin wines like when I did my strawberry Jam wine I use double the pectic enzyme recommendation. So a full 1tsp per gallon. Once that is added wait a good 12-24 hours. Then pitch rehydrated yeast. You should not need to add finnings as long as you wait long enough. If you have a way to cool the batch to 50*F or lower in the final clearing steps then that help a lot.

 

[aiptasia]

Arpolis, thanks for answering. I've never made wine or beer from these dates but the sheer amount on the one tree might be enough for me to do two or three batches. I'm going to try brewing a beer along with making wine but I have no experience with a high fruit pectin wine as a sugar source or using pectic enzyme to help break up the pectins in the dates.

As far as the clarity before bottling, I can use my chest freezer to cold crash the wine. If it's still cloudy and hazy, I can use sparkolloid to help brighten it up and just rack it every 30 days until clear.

 

[Arpolis]

Just give it about 7-10 days in the chest freezer before attempting to use the sparkloid. Here in the winter I just put a 5 gallon carboy in the cold shed for a week or two and that does the trick for me.

I have never used your fruit but have made peach wines several times and strawberry jelly wine which both have high pectin. I never had to use finnings. But then again it took me 3-6 months before I would bottle. I think finnings are more for someone wanting to bottle a wine within 60 days.

 

[FatBuddhaBoo]

Okay, found this site and post while Googling for Pindo Palm wine.

My problem is this. I used 3 crushed campden tablets after adding water to prevent natural fermentation. Let it sit for two days, then popped the top on my bucket and it appears it is fermenting anyways. I didn't even get a Brix reading and much less add any sugar. I see the gas bubbles releasing, and the mash keeps rising to the top and pushing out of the liquid just like my grape wine does.

Reading Arpolis' post, I did not de-seed the fruit, only froze, thawed, mashed then added water.

Since I have another 25 pounds of Pindo fruit my thought is to let this batch go and see what happens naturally while adding a bit more sugar. Then I'll thaw the other fruit and try round 2.

So is this natural fermentation or is it SO2 being released from the addition of campden tablets?

Any and all thoughts greatly appreciated....

 

[Nivekt]

I've got two Pindo Palm Trees and have harvested about 12 lbs of fruit so far with much more to come. Im following this recipe in hopes of making something decent. Aiptasia, how did you separate the seed from the fruit? I've frozen the fruit, thawed it and am mashing it with a potato masher but the seeds wont release. It takes a lot of force to peel them away considering the flesh is so fibrous and clings to the seed. Should I just leave the seeds in for now?

 

[FatBuddhaBoo]

I've got two Pindo Palm Trees and have harvested about 12 lbs of fruit so far with much more to come. Im following this recipe in hopes of making something decent. Aiptasia, how did you separate the seed from the fruit? I've frozen the fruit, thawed it and am mashing it with a potato masher but the seeds wont release. It takes a lot of force to peel them away considering the flesh is so fibrous and clings to the seed. Should I just leave the seeds in for now?

If I recall from mine they separated rather easily after soaking for a day in water using fresh seed. After I mashed them slightly I merely squeezed them like a pimple and popped the seed out. I've got some in the freezer that I have yet to thaw, so I can't reference those yet.

With that, the wine came out not too bad. Some bottles were a bit clearer than others and I'm still drinking some that I made last year.

 

[Nivekt]

If I recall from mine they separated rather easily after soaking for a day in water using fresh seed. After I mashed them slightly I merely squeezed them like a pimple and popped the seed out. I've got some in the freezer that I have yet to thaw, so I can't reference those yet.

With that, the wine came out not too bad. Some bottles were a bit clearer than others and I'm still drinking some that I made last year.

Thanks for the info. Ill let them soak and see what happens. Did you stick with the above referenced recipe exactly or deviate at all?

 

[FatBuddhaBoo]

Thanks for the info. Ill let them soak and see what happens. Did you stick with the above referenced recipe exactly or deviate at all?

I know I did not follow this exactly, as I read elsewhere these will naturally ferment with nothing added and be just as good. I hope to experiment some more this weekend with my frozen ones.